The Oath Breaker: A Novel of Germania and Rome (Hraban Chronicles Book 1)

by Alaric Longward

  Balderich frowned. 'So? Your gear is Roman? No?'

  Nihta nodded. 'This coin, I will give it to someone who is needy, if you let me.'

  Balderich hesitated and nodded. 'Indeed I do. But why?'

  Nihta shrugged. 'My Lord Maroboodus and I took an oath. We would take no Roman coin, unless it comes from a Roman corpse. And as for my gear, it is stolen from our enemy.'

  Bero huffed as if he had expected such an answer. Balderich smiled patiently, shaking his head. I thought of the many things that had been told about Bero, his skills in managing the nation, and what Nihta had said. He was right. Germani lived for fame, for stories of great, suffering heroes. Balderich and Bero both stood out in their Roman tunics, with the Roman coin. Nihta had drawn a line between Marcomanni and their leaders, and I saw many men look into their cups, full or empty, all silent, thinking deep on their own honor.

  Balderich dismissed Nihta.

  Bero turned on me. 'So, this is your father's plan? To make me look Roman? He will fail.'

  'Great Uncle, I gave an oath to serve Maroboodus. He is my father, and a father must be obeyed. I am sorry if this puts us on different sides.'

  He thought about it for a while. 'It is indeed a good thing to serve one's father. Wulf told me about a vile, hurtful oath you were forced to give Maroboodus. However, tell me, Hraban, if he does not believe himself your true father, is such an oath not void? Why serve a father who does not wish to be one?'

  Bero left the table.

  I was shaken at his simple logic.

  Balderich nodded at his back. 'He is a good man. Hulderic was, too. He does not admit it, but while he governed the land, Hulderic led many of its smaller, important wars. Especially against Matticati and Chatti. They needed each other. Now, he has to manage your father.'

  'And you will help him?' I asked, confused by my own very mixed feelings towards Bero and Balderich.

  'I have daughters.' He sighed. 'A single daughter living. One who has not born children. The only thing I miss is an heir. Marcomanni need a descendant of Aristovistus to be living here, to be seen leading the tribes for the old legacy. That is where you and Gernot come in. Not your father.'

  'We come in? You mean we would lead the ancient Marcomanni?' I asked, my head spinning crazily at the thought.

  'Eventually. Bero will take over after I die, his son possibly leading after, if he proves to be smart enough. However, we need you, or even your shifty Gernot here. Aid us, and we will elevate you,' he said, looking me in the eye. 'As Bero said, Hulderic wanted you to obey a father. But a father who does not think you a son is not a father.'

  So I broke my oath.

  I thought of my father's instructions to get close to his dangerous enemies, of Nihta's claims I was a survivor, and of the advice that a lord breaks oaths to further the right causes. I took comfort from the fact I could always betray Balderich and Bero and keep one of the oaths I had given, when I knew what was right. I had time to figure it out. Nevertheless, I fell in love with my grandfather, and I even liked and understood Bero.

  I nodded. 'Yes, Lord. Grandfather.'

  'We will speak more, and I am proud of you, boy,' he told me.

  I drank excessively. I ate the food Gunhild brought me; the best, choicest cuts of meat. Come night, I got up, swooned and fell to the ground, dying.

  CHAPTER IX

  I was hopelessly delirious for a week. They tell me I threw up, shat myself constantly, raved like a rabid animal and cried when too tired to rage. My belly was swollen and raw. A terrible fever ravaged my body. I remember talking with my mother, yelling at the boatman over a dark river to come and fetch me, but he just sat there stubbornly in his gray boat, counting pale silver and gold while my mother told me from the far shore to go back. She was pallid and sickly, and her throat was a ragged, bloodless wound. I saw no sign of Hulderic or Hagano, and hoped they were not in Hel, where those who die of disease go, but in Valholl, where the fighters and the slain brave meet. I dreaded Hel, I still do. Despite her new home, I needed someone to comfort me, and I yearned to go to my mother, but something kept me back, and I sat at the riverbank, weeping for long days. Still the boatman did not budge, unceasing in his counting of the coin.

  Then, one day, I woke with a ragged breath and threw up some bitter soup that had just been forced in my dry mouth. I squinted at the people around me.

  Gunhild was sitting there, arguing with a vile creature of dirt and red, matted hair. Nihta was next to him.

  'You must not touch him. Wulf and Bark will eventually heal him, and you …' my aunt was arguing.

  I saw Balderich holding her back.

  'They failed,' he said with a rasp. 'Look.' Balderich pointed at me and smiled, his face drawn.

  I groaned. I tried to speak, but it came out as a pig-like squeal. Odo grunted as he pried my mouth open and poured some more soup inside my swollen mouth.

  'Eat, you dung-smelling fool,' he growled.

  That was the only time in my life I obeyed the toad. I lay there, wondering at what had happened. I remembered the feast, and my determination to go to bed. Then, deep darkness, the troubled nightmares, and constant pain.

  'What…was it?' I croaked. 'What? Poison?'

  Nihta grunted. He came forward to look at my face. 'Crocus. Last year's flower. So says Odo.'

  Odo pushed Nihta back. 'Why did you not summon me before?' he asked Balderich testily.

  'Because,' he said, 'we have vitka of our own. Bark serves boar lord Freyr, and is a proper healer. Wulf, you know, has healed…'

  'Cows. He has healed cows, and he is an ignorant peasant. Well, you will survive, lucky Hraban. However, beware of murderers. Eat what you know, and you won't die in your smelly shit.'

  I cursed him and nodded to be rid of his presence. I glanced at Balderich and Gunhild, who, after Odo gave room, came forward. Wulf and another, a stern looking bald man with a tarred beard came to the room, saw Odo and stopped in their tracks, shocked to the core.

  'Why is he here? He serves …' Wulf started, but Odo laughed.

  'I saved your precious guest, Balderich. Your relative. Perhaps your honor. Will you let the charlatans treat me like this?' Odo asked impatiently, his head hobbling with indignation.

  Balderich shook his head at the two vitka, who reluctantly shut up. 'Odo, perhaps it would be good you stay near. Where are you sleeping? I have room right here. I told you two to let us know where you stay.'

  Odo smiled. 'Too kind, Lord Balderich. I wander the long, shadowy nights. I need no real sleep. I speak with reclusive spirits, and my rest is different from yours. Dangerous to mortals it is, if they are near. I will not risk you, high one. However, I will stay near, place deadly wards around Hraban, and myself. The two spew filth and poison.'

  He nodded at the two vitka and left.

  I glanced at the bald man, who was apparently called Bark. He looked similar to Wulf in many ways, but was obviously a harder man than the nervous, and sometimes kind, Wulf.

  Nihta put himself between them and me. He bowed at Balderich. 'He speaks the truth. He walks the nights outside. Never in the same place. No disrespect meant, I am sure, my Lord. He is a vitka, and goes with the gods.'

  Balderich scowled. 'Do you, Nihta, know about some missing men of mine? One of Bero's? They were lost to us recently, in the night he walks in.'

  Nihta shrugged with an uncaring smile. Evidently, they had been following him. 'No, Lord. I am sorry.'

  'And where do you sleep?' Balderich asked, sarcastically.

  'I barely sleep either,' Nihta told him with a wide grin. 'I visit friendly men who invite me over. Many wish to do me the honor. I have not yet had a need for a place to sleep, and the fine lords of the village keep me drunk and happy long into the restless nights.'

  'It is good,' Balderich said warily, 'that your fame makes you so popular.'

  He would send more men to find Nihta's nocturnal movements. They had Hard Hill well surrounded by dogs and hunters, and the harbor watched
carefully. Nihta would find it hard to escape.

  Bark was silent as an owl, but Wulf could not contain himself. 'This is ridiculous! We tried everything to heal him. Prayers, our many skills, all the difficult to make poultices, and the gods’ blessed potions only we could come up with! And you let the cur Odo speak to us …'

  Balderich made a curt, dismissing gesture with his gnarled hand. Bark pulled reluctant Wulf with him.

  He looked me in the eye before dodging out of the room. 'Remember, Hraban, the one who poisoned you is likely the one who knows how to heal you.'

  'I know,' I said. 'But I also know Wulf thinks I am a god-cursed risk to Midgard, and my sudden death would benefit the world.'

  Bark nodded slowly. 'Perhaps so. However, know also that as long as your revered grandfather thinks highly of you, we are no threat to you. We are to Odo and his clan, though. Have always been, just like they are to us. Do not make us enemies.'

  Nihta snorted in derision, and they left.

  Gunhild sat down heavily, her hair greasy. Nihta said nothing but skimmed over the others in the cramped room.

  'Worry not, Aunt. I feel much better. Weak, but better. I will be fine,' I told her as she wept and hugged me fiercely.

  Balderich snorted. 'I knew you were going to pull through. You are tough as leather, just like I was. I once swallowed a date from the south, and it took me two weeks to pull out alive from the clutches of the poison in the fruit. You must believe me, it was not Bero who did this. When you fell there, in front of all the worried people, all they spoke about was your father and his grief. I would look at some other man to blame than Bero.'

  Balderich meant filthy Odo and perhaps Nihta, but Nihta said nothing. Balderich glanced at him, but I cleared my throat to end the discussion and tried to get up, but collapsed, feeling uncannily weak.

  Nihta stepped before my family. 'He needs to have rest.' His sharp eyes brooked no argument as he held his hand on a gladius.

  Balderich took no apparent offence, even under his very own roof.

  'We speak soon, boy. I will watch you, Nihta. Do not break your honor as my guest,' Balderich said drily, guiding Gunhild away.

  A grizzled guard appeared at the doorway, his eyes never leaving Nihta.

  I gazed at Nihta, who looked at his hands, silent for a long time. He did not look at me as he spoke. 'It's likely that Bark did this. Not Wulf, he is soft as a frog. Alternatively, it could well have been Bero. He is mad with his past grievances, even if he seems nearly lucid and reasonable. He is willing to risk anything to hurt Maroboodus. Just as your father hurt him. The priests are with him. They heed Bero's calls, like a good wife a husband. There are many vitka who follow him in the villages around here, many, for Bero knows how to seduce them with praise and wealth. The Flowery Meadows house crocuses.'

  'What is that, Nihta,' I asked, not able to believe it was Bero. 'The Flowery Meadows?'

  'A place where there is a holy grove. An ancient place where they pray in stupor and hold their nefarious meetings. A place which we will lay low when the day arrives,' he whispered to me, glaring at the guard. 'We will start training tomorrow. We have nearly three weeks to make you into a warrior, and I will be brutal tutor.' He swiped his hand over his face. 'They will ask you to betray us. When they do, tell me.'

  I nodded, deeply ashamed. They already had, but I said nothing nonetheless. I had seen Nihta. He was making Maroboodus a great hero by his tales of the foreign war and the battles. Perhaps he had made Maroboodus also a sad victim. His trusted son dead at Balderich's tables? Poisoned? A worthy cause for any man to take. Revenge for injustice.

  Nihta left, and I slept, confused.

  Next morning, I learnt how the Romans train their men.

  I ate bread made of wheat, soft and agreeable to my belly, a wrinkled apple, salty fish, and narrow lentils, very carefully as I was unsure I could keep them down. They held, but I felt weak.

  I went outside and cursed the surprisingly bright sun. On the left side of the hall, there was a sturdy post, six foot tall, thick and strong. On its base leaned a used wicker shield and a nicked, wooden sword. I staggered forward and took up the sword. It was heavy, very heavy, built that way. Much heavier than the real sword Marcus had used. Nihta rapped my head sharply with his fist, having sneaked up on me.

  'Why do you heft the weapon?' he demanded merrily. He was wearing a stained tunic over his breeches in a haphazard manner, his knot loose.

  'Rough night, Nihta?' I asked. 'I thought we were to train?'

  'Yes, I had a rough night.' He stretched his neck, then looked around. 'Your aunt here?'

  'What were you up to?' I asked with a frown.

  'I guarded you and Odo, you fool. I told Balderich the truth. I do not sleep much,' he said drowsily. 'I asked, is your fair aunt here?'

  'She walks the planked harbor in the morning. She says she likes to be near the ships,' I told him. She went down there every morning with a vigilant guard, and spoke with strange merchants, dreaming of the faraway lands.

  'Good,' he said.

  'Why is it good?'

  He grinned. 'Because she would try to save you from me. Now, will you put it down so we can start?'

  I put the sword down, confused.

  'We will run for a few hours, swim in the river, perhaps, and then we return here. Come,' he told me and pulled me along with him.

  I thought of complaining, reminding him just yesterday I was near death, but I bit my dry lips and followed him. Gods, I suffered and was miserable. I threw up many times, staggered along, and nearly died when we finally ran back up the hill, long hours later.

  'Come, do not eat from there! That is for the nasty, fat pigs!' he mocked me as I lay on animal dung near the stable end of the Red Hall, uncaring of the smelly trough I was slumped over.

  I retched again, but there was nothing left in my guts.

  'Look, over there,' he said, crouching next to me.

  Nihta was pointing to the east, many miles from the hill. 'The patch of beech trees? Some few lonely firs amongst them. A large patch? See it?'

  I nodded. There were trees all over Germania, and near the villages, pastures cut into them, creating some lonely islands of greenery. This one was larger than others, settled on a very small hill.

  'Inside that, there is the holy shrine, Flowery Meadows. Sacred to the gods, your Woden mainly, but also to Tiw and Freyr. It's hung with strange idols, and the mysterious vitka and feared völva travel there from all over the Germani lands around us. Your Tear, I heard, suffered there.'

  'Suffered?' I asked, intrigued. 'Why?'

  'She is obsessed with the prophecy, but she was not always so. She used to travel with other völva, making important auguries. Once, while here, Bero tried to buy her loyalty. She refused.'

  'What did he offer?' I asked.

  'He offered her a lot. He knew she came from your village or the woods near it. He also, offered himself, I think,' Nihta grinned, shaking his head. 'She was pretty back then, they tell me!'

  We laughed, and I imagined the old hag at Ishild's age.

  Nihta continued, 'She, unfortunately, had something he did not anticipate. She genuinely had the ear of the gods, unlike many of their kind. She told Bero very publicly and rudely that he would die possessed by a mad god, chained like a criminal, and bound to lose his soul at the end of the same sword that had claimed his son. Bero did not like it, oh no. He shivered in terror. Therefore, when the völva left, visiting the Meadows there, he hired foreign mercenaries to kill them. He does that, you know, to those who displease him. They tried. They say she was raped while Bero watched, but she survived the ordeal, horribly wounded, but they spared her. None of the others lived.'

  'Were the others from her strange clan from the north?' I asked, horrified.

  'Possibly. I know not.'

  I felt uneasy about Nihta's words. Such things happen, but they are an abomination to most men. Romans did that, and some of ours. Men caught doing that died in the bog.
Was Bero like that? I had liked him. However, perhaps if Tear's followers were of the blood of the god who plotted to end Woden's reign, there was something else involved. Perhaps Bark had been party to the tragedy. They certainly seemed to have a shadowy, bloody history.

  We got up and ran some more horribly painful trails.

  During the midday meal, I lay on the ground in a semiconscious state. Nihta prodded me with his toe, splashed cold water on my back, and gave me the wooden sword. I pulled myself up, near crying, trembling with fatigue. He showed me how to hold the shield, and started to teach a dull series of repetitious punches and pokes against the pole. I was weak, and my back and arms ached.

  Nihta laughed mockingly at me. 'You bastard! Weak-livered, piss-smelling girly boy. Hit it, punch it, and punch it! Not like that! You have to be fast, not probe with the sword. You look like a drunken virgin boy trying to court a fat maiden. Now, with your left hand!'

  'I'm right-handed!' I complained.

  'Yes, and if you lose the hand in battle, your duty to your lord, is not done, is it? Insulting the foe is not enough, you fool,' he said, and I changed hands.

  I stabbed repeatedly until blood flowed down my arms from the raw palms. I lost sense of time but not space, since Nihta was relentless and forced me to do the routine ruthlessly and correctly. When it was suppertime, he let me collapse like a sack of salted meat and dragged me to bed by my feet. I did not notice, but the crowd we had accumulated dispersed with pitying laughs. They saw I suffered greatly at the hands of Nihta, and I bet Bero was happy about that. Balderich, too. Few free Germani take such punishment and enjoy it. It breaks our rights and shames one. They would expect me to hate Nihta.

  I did not, for some reason. He was making me into a man.

  Nihta pushed me to my bed with a laugh, and went to the main hall, about to leave. I saw a young snub-nosed boy with a clever face dressed like a slave beckon for Nihta from the door and heard him whisper: 'Isfried.' The lord of the southern gau. Whatever my father was planning, it involved the scowling Lord Isfried. Nihta stood there, his hand raised, casting a glance in my direction, but I pretended to be comatose.